Louvre Museum

In the Middle Ages, the area now known as the Louvre museum was first built as a fortress to protect Paris. Between 1364 and 1380, Charles V transformed the fortress into a castle. After hundreds of years, the castle was demolished and rebuilt as a palace for kings and queens until it became a residence for artists in the 1700s. These artists, along with King Louis XVI, began transforming this space into a museum to showcase royal art collections. These collections grew over the years and by 1793, the Louvre opened with 537 paintings. It now has more than 380,000 objects that include paintings, sculptures, drawings, and archaeological finds. Today, it is the most-visited museum in the world, with approximately 15,000 visitors per day. Since its inception, the Louvre was created to be a universal museum, with art from countries all around the world, spanning several thousand years. Included in their vast and famous collection are the Mona Lisa, the Winged Victory of Samothrace, and the Venus de Milo.